Fauchelevent

“ The grave-digger dropped his shovel.
Fauchelevent's turn had come.
"Ah, come now, conscript," said Fauchelevent, "none of this despair. There is no question of committing suicide and benefiting the grave. Fifteen francs is fifteen francs, and besides, you may not be able to pay it. I am an old hand, you are a new one. I know all the ropes and the devices. I will give you some friendly advice. One thing is clear, the sun is on the point of setting, it is touching the dome now, the cemetery will be closed in five minutes more." ”

“ His name was Ultime Fauchelevent.
The most powerful determining cause of his admission had been the prioress's observation upon Cosette: "She will grow up ugly."
The prioress, that pronounced prognosticator, immediately took a fancy to Cosette and gave her a place in the school as a charity pupil.
There is nothing that is not strictly logical about this.
It is in vain that mirrors are banished from the convent, women are conscious of their faces; now, girls who are conscious of their beauty do not easily become nuns ”

“ And he added, with the satisfaction of a serious man who is turning a phrase well:--
"Their hunger is the enemy of my thirst."
The hearse skirted a clump of cypress-trees, quitted the grand alley, turned into a narrow one, entered the waste land, and plunged into a thicket. This indicated the immediate proximity of the place of sepulture. Fauchelevent slackened his pace, but he could not detain the hearse. Fortunately, the soil, which was light and wet with the winter rains, clogged the wheels and retarded its speed. ”

“ And then, that there was another: the empty coffin.
"What is that empty coffin?" asked Jean Valjean.
Fauchelevent replied:--
"The coffin of the administration."
"What coffin? What administration?"
"A nun dies. The municipal doctor comes and says, `A nun has died.' The government sends a coffin. The next day it sends a hearse and undertaker's men to get the coffin and carry it to the cemetery. The undertaker's men will come and lift the coffin; there will be nothing in it."
"Put something in it."
"A corpse? I have none."
"No."
"What then?"
"A living person."
"What person?" ”

“ He made haste to improvise an expedient to make her forget the oath.
"I will put earth in the coffin, reverend Mother. That will produce the effect of a corpse."
"You are right. Earth, that is the same thing as man. So you will manage the empty coffin?"
"I will make that my special business."
The prioress's face, up to that moment troubled and clouded, grew serene once more. She made the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior to him. Fauchelevent went towards the door. As he was on the point of passing out, the prioress raised her voice gently:--
"I am pleased with you, Father Fauvent ”

“ An invisible phantom was at the heels of the community and we were part of a mighty stampede. After fumbling for an instant at the bell and pushing back several ghastly creatures who were on the steps, I must have applied my shoulder to the door and pushed it in. Some one appeared to be resisting on the other side, but it gave way and I half fell into Judge Brisbane's vestibule. An instant later we were looking into each other's faces, I, bloody and soiled and ragged and wild with the frenzy of fear and impatience; he, pale as death, but resolute, and holding an enormous bar over me. ”

“ There’s a little chap out there, Foucarmont they call him, who’s to be met with everywhere and at every turn. One’s seen faster men than that, though, you bet. However, it doesn’t concern me, and indeed, all I know is that if the countess indulges in high jinks she’s still pretty sly about it, for the thing never gets about—nobody talks.”
Then although Fauchery did not take the trouble to question him, he told him all he knew about the Muffats. ”

“ Steiner was getting bored. He was describing to Fauchery an escapade of that little Mme de Chezelles, whom he simply referred to as Leonide. “A blackguard woman,” he said, lowering his voice behind the ladies’ armchairs. Fauchery looked at her as she sat quaintly perched, in her voluminous ball dress of pale blue satin, on the corner of her armchair. She looked as slight and impudent as a boy, and he ended by feeling astonished at seeing her there. People comported themselves better at Caroline Hequet’s, whose mother had arranged her house on serious principles. ”

“ They would never get her to believe that Fauchery had not put the Count Muffat off coming! A regular snake was that Fauchery, an envious sort, a fellow capable of growing mad against a woman and of destroying her whole happiness. ”

“ There rapid footsteps startled him, as though he was a skulking evildoer, and the swift approach of a man along an intersecting pathway, made him feel like taking to cowardly flight. But he recognized the monomaniac, Eph, who was in a breathless tremor.
"Mr. Heath, could a man walk to Dimmersville before the telegraph station there opens in the morning?" Eph asked, with several catches of breath and a reeling movement of physical weakness.
"You go to bed, Eph," was the reply, meant to be soothing, "and I'll see that your telegram goes from here the earliest thing in the morning. ”

“ Whom had you in mind? An enemy living in the house? One of your servants? Or people from the outside? In that case, how could they get in? The whole question lies in that."
"To-morrow, to-morrow," replied Fauville, obstinately. "I will explain everything to-morrow--"
"Why not to-night?" Perenna persisted.
"Because I want proofs, I tell you; because the mere fact of my talking may have terrible consequences--and I am frightened; yes, I'm frightened--"
He was trembling, in fact, and looked so wretched and terrified that Don Luis insisted no longer. ”

“ Palsgrave has curryfavell, a flatterer, "estrille faveau," estriller (étriller) meaning "to curry (a horse) ." Faveau, earlier fauvel, is the name of a horse in the famous Roman de Fauvel, a satirical Old French poem of the early 14th century. He symbolises worldly vanity carefully tended by all classes of society. The name is a diminutive of Fr. fauve, tawny, cognate with Eng. fallow (deer) . (See also p. 192, n.)
A very curious case of folk-etymology is seen in the old superstition of the hand of glory. ”

“ M. Fauville threatened with death and contriving his wife's ruin with that Machiavellian perseverance? Absurd! The man who came to my office, the man whom you saw, was thinking of only one thing: how to escape dying! He was obsessed by one dread alone, the dread of death.
"It is not at such moments," the Prefect emphasized, "that a man fits up clockwork and lays traps, especially when those traps cannot take effect unless he dies by foul play. ”

“ I'm frightened!" he said.
"This is madness!" cried Don Luis. "Aren't we here, the two of us? We can easily spend the night with you, if you prefer, by your bedside."
Fauville replied by shaking Perenna violently by the shoulder, and, with distorted features, stammering:
"If there were ten of you--if there were twenty of you with me, you need not think that it would spoil their schemes! They can do anything they please, do you hear, anything! They have already killed Inspector Vérot--they will kill me--and they will kill my son. Oh, the blackguards! My God, take pity on me! ”

“ Suddenly two wall-brackets are illuminated, disclosing
part of the crowd massed on the platform.
As they surge back, there remains on the platform,
fallen and motionless, the figure of Faust. He raises
his head slowly.
FAUST
Ah, Satan!... worthy serf to my command!...
Go! I release you. For I would not die
With such a slave— Nay, though I die alone.... ”

“ This utter disregard for truth prepares us to discount considerably the description given of Fawkes by Greenway, as “a man of great piety, of exemplary temperance, of mild and cheerful demeanour, an enemy of broils and disputes, a faithful friend, and remarkable for his punctual attendance upon religious observances.” So far as facts can be sifted from fiction, they seem to be that Thomas Winter, who had known Fawkes from childhood, came to him in Flanders to acquaint him with the plot, and subsequently introduced him to Catesby and Percy ”

“ She must have run like a demon; for I was less than ten yards ahead when Peter caught my wrist and pulled me up on to the back-seat of the dog-cart. And before George could set the horse going her hand clutched at the flap on which my feet rested. It missed its grasp, and she never got near enough again. But for half a minute I looked into that horrible face following us and working with silent rage ”

“ Fawkes was quickly hemmed in by a wall of men, each with drawn sword in hand. On the instant it flashed upon him that the plot was known, and that further dissimulation would be profitless; therefore he held his peace while two or three of his captors searched the cellar. One muttered an exclamation; he had come upon the fuse, and following it, perceived the barrels beneath the pile of faggots. Fawkes smiled grimly.
"If thou wilt look yet further," said he, "haply thou wilt find a dead man." ”

“ A pipe, a pipe, and then I shall tell you."
"Indeed, I have waited long."
"Chovet told Fauchet at my request of this regrettable affair. He is uneasy, and he well may be, concerning all there is left of his secretary."
"Then he is alive," said René; "and will he live?"
"Alive? Yes, very much alive, raving at times like a madman haunted by hell fiends. I had to stay. After a day he was clear of head, but as weak as a man can be with the two maladies of a ball in a [Pg 312] palsied shoulder and a doctor looking for it. Yes, he will live; and alive or dead will make mischief." ”

“ I took the first opportunity of asking my husband if there was anything remarkable about Fahey. Mr. Davenport seemed a good deal put out by the question, and asked me what I meant. I said I thought Fahey was odd at times. My husband said Fahey was all right, and did not seem disposed to go on any further with the conversation.
"I did not meet Fahey again for a long time--I mean months. He then seemed quite collected; but before wishing good-bye, he said significantly: 'A man may disappear at any moment on a coast like this, and yet may not be dead. ”

“ It was the appearance of a woman, who suddenly issued from an alley a score of yards in front of him, and with a quick glance over her shoulder, disappeared down another turn in the road. The movements of this apparition caused Fawkes to pause, when suddenly a second figure, this time a man, came into view and hurried in the direction taken by the girl. "By my hilt," whispered Fawkes, peering cautiously out of the shadow in which he stood, "that rogue had a most suspicious air about him; an honest man walks with more noise ”

“ As to Fauchery, he could speak of it from personal experience, for he still bore marks of it in the shape of three little lumps at the base of his nose, which he showed them. And when Mignon again egged him on to the ascent, on the pretext that you never had it twice, he violently combated this theory and with infinite abuse of the doctors instanced various cases. But Lucy and Caroline interrupted them, for the growing multitude filled them with astonishment.
“Just look! Just look what a lot of people!” The night was deepening, and in the distance the gas lamps were being lit one by one. ”

“ They had been beautiful and noble, these Fawcetts. Not strong, not clever, but wonderful. They had had a spirit, a spiritual quality, as though for many, many centuries their women had kept themselves unspotted by anything not noble. An instinct for style running in the race of the Fawcetts for centuries had made them what they were.
A hope burned up in Roger like inspiration. All that instinct for fineness, that fastidious selection of the right and good which had worked to make Ottalie, from long before her birth, and had flowered in her, was surely eternal. ”

“ He set his wits to work to kill at a long date, like an experimenter who leaves to time the duty of proving the excellence of his invention. And he succeeded only too well, because the police fell into the trap and because Mme. Fauville is perhaps going to die."
M. Desmalions made a gesture of decision. The whole business, in fact, was past history, on which the police proceedings would throw the necessary light. One fact alone was of importance to the present: the saving of Marie Fauville's life.
"It's true," he said, "we have not a minute to lose. Mme. Fauville must be told without delay. ”

“ Gerald instinctively turned to look for the cause.
Into the picture had come a human figure. A few yards in front of the hut stood a man. In relation to the landscape far beyond he was gigantic, and the shade of the trees made him devilishly black by contrast with the sunlight of heaven that illumined the rest. He was thus for an instant in silhouette, and it chanced that his sharp outlines included a facial profile, with the points of a mustache and beard giving satanic suggestion to an accidental attitude of malicious intrusion. ”

“ Mary exclaimed, as Gerald got a vanishing glimpse of the white-draped figure. "Good-night."
"You will be afraid if left alone," Gerald protested; "you can't go to sleep, nervous as you must be."
"I surely can't go to sleep talking," was her rejoinder, with the first touch of coquetry she had indulged in at Overlook. ”

“ No one was altogether satisfied, and least of all Fauchet, who at every opportunity was sending despatches home by any French war-ship seeking refuge in our ports.
A little before noon, on the 29th of November, of this year, 1794, a date De Courval was never to forget, he was taking the time for his watch from the clock on the western wall of the State House. As he stood, he saw Dr. Chovet stop his chaise.
"Bonjour, citizen," cried the doctor. "Your too intimate friend, Monsieur Carteaux, is off for France. He will trouble you no more." ”