Victor Hugo

“ You are poor; I see that plainly. You cannot be even a curate. Are you really a cure? Ah, if the good God were but just, you certainly ought to be a cure!'
"`The good God is more than just,' said my brother.
"A moment later he added:--
"`Monsieur Jean Valjean, is it to Pontarlier that you are going?'
"`With my road marked out for me.'
"I think that is what the man said. Then he went on:--
"`I must be on my way by daybreak to-morrow. Travelling is hard. If the nights are cold, the days are hot.'
"`You are going to a good country,' said my brother. `During the Revolution my family was ruined. ”

“ It is their cheese-dairies, which they call fruitieres.'
"Then my brother, while urging the man to eat, explained to him, with great minuteness, what these fruitieres of Pontarlier were; that they were divided into two classes: the big barns which belong to the rich, and where there are forty or fifty cows which produce from seven to eight thousand cheeses each summer, and the associated fruitieres, which belong to the poor; these are the peasants of mid-mountain, who hold their cows in common, and share the proceeds. `They engage the services of a cheese-maker, whom they call the grurin ”

“ This might have appeared to any one else who had this, unfortunate man in his hands to afford a chance to nourish his soul as well as his body, and to bestow upon him some reproach, seasoned with moralizing and advice, or a little commiseration, with an exhortation to conduct himself better in the future. ”