.

To this secluded place came, at one period of Victor's childhood,
General Lahorie, his godfather, hiding from the authorities, who had set
a price upon his head; and here he was securely hidden by Madame Hugo
for two years, as Victor Hugo afterwards pictured Jean Valjean as being
concealed there by the old gardener. Lahorie was implicated in Moreau's
plot against Napoleon, and was being diligently sought after by the
police all the time he occupied the ruined chapel in the old
convent-garden. His camp bed was under the shelter of the altar; in a
corner were his pistols; and although the rain and snow came in through
the dilapidated windows, he bivouacked here in winter as well as summer.
The children never knew who he was; he was called simply "the General,"
and was much loved by the boys, to whom he talked much of their country
and of liberty. After a time, under the promise of pardon if he came
forward to receive it, he was betrayed into giving himself up; was
arrested at once, cast into prison, and afterward shot,--one of the most
infamous of the acts of Napoleon, noted throughout his whole career for
treachery and insatiable bloodthirstiness.

This devilish betrayal of his early friend did not fail to impress the
mind of such a boy as Victor Hugo, and to add to his natural hatred of
tyrants and their deeds. It was perhaps the most lasting and impressive
lesson that he ever learned, and the world has seen its results in his
life. Throughout all the varied years of a long and eventful career, it
was ever at the shrine of liberty that he paid his devotions, ever her
praises that he sung in his loftiest verse, ever for her that he struck
the strongest blows of which his arm was capable.

Almost solitary as were the lives of the children under Madame Hugo's
watchful eyes, the one visitor who was admitted to their companionship
was welcomed with more than the accustomed warmth of children. This was
a little girl named Adele Foucher (about thirteen or fourteen years old
when she first visited them), who used occasionally to spend the day
with the boys in the garden. Victor soon felt for her the most tender
and chivalric regard. He has himself described it once and again, the
first time in the story of Pepita, in "Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamne,"
where "he sees her in all her charms, just fourteen years of age, with
large lustrous eyes and luxuriant hair, with rich golden-brown skin and
crimson lips; he dwells on the pr