الفصل الفصل 47 · FAUCHELEVENT BECOMES A GARDENER IN PARIS

Fauchelevent had dislocated his kneepan in his fall. Father Madeleine

had him conveyed to an infirmary which he had established for his

workmen in the factory building itself, and which was served by two

sisters of charity. On the following morning the old man found a

thousand-franc bank-note on his night-stand, with these words in Father

Madeleine’s writing: _“I purchase your horse and cart.”_ The cart was

broken, and the horse was dead. Fauchelevent recovered, but his knee

remained stiff. M. Madeleine, on the recommendation of the sisters of

charity and of his priest, got the good man a place as gardener in a

female convent in the Rue Saint-Antoine in Paris.

Some time afterwards, M. Madeleine was appointed mayor. The first time

that Javert beheld M. Madeleine clothed in the scarf which gave him

authority over the town, he felt the sort of shudder which a watch-dog

might experience on smelling a wolf in his master’s clothes. From that

time forth he avoided him as much as he possibly could. When the

requirements of the service imperatively demanded it, and he could not

do otherwise than meet the mayor, he addressed him with profound

respect.

This prosperity created at M. sur M. by Father Madeleine had, besides

the visible signs which we have mentioned, another symptom which was

nonetheless significant for not being visible. This never deceives.

When the population suffers, when work is lacking, when there is no

commerce, the tax-payer resists imposts through penury, he exhausts and

oversteps his respite, and the state expends a great deal of money in

the charges for compelling and collection. When work is abundant, when

the country is rich and happy, the taxes are paid easily and cost the

state nothing. It may be said, that there is one infallible thermometer

of the public misery and riches,—the cost of collecting the taxes. In

the course of seven years the expense of collecting the taxes had

diminished three-fourths in the arrondissement of M. sur M., and this

led to this arrondissement being frequently cited from all the rest by

M. de Villèle, then Minister of Finance.

Such was the condition of the country when Fantine returned thither. No

one remembered her. Fortunately, the door of M. Madeleine’s factory was

like the face of a friend. She presented herself there, and was

admitted to the women’s workroom. The trade was entirely new to

Fantine; she could not be very skilful at it, and she therefore earned

but little by her day’s work; but it was sufficient; the problem was

solved; she was earning her living.