Montfermeil

“ She explained to him what had passed: that Fantine had been very ill the day before, and that she was better now, because she thought that the mayor had gone to Montfermeil to get her child. The sister dared not question the mayor; but she perceived plainly from his air that he had not come from there.
"All that is good," said he; "you were right not to undeceive her."
"Yes," responded the sister; "but now, Mr. Mayor, she will see you and will not see her child. What shall we say to her?"
He reflected for a moment.
"God will inspire us," said he. ”

“ A VISIT TO MONTFERMEIL
Auguste, who had no secrets from the faithful Bertrand, told him of the meeting in Romainville forest.
“Well, lieutenant,” said Bertrand, “was Madame Schtrack mistaken when she told me about the little man that slunk upstairs as soon as you left?”
“I thought that Léonie adored me.”
“I’m surprised at that, lieutenant; you deceive the ladies so often yourself, that you ought to be a little more suspicious of their oaths.”
“On the contrary, my dear Bertrand, I assure you that those who are most cunning in seduction allow themselves to be deceived with astounding ease.” ”

“ His first care on arriving in Paris had been to buy mourning clothes for a little girl of from seven to eight years of age; then to procure a lodging. That done, he had betaken himself to Montfermeil. ”

“ A regiment of dragoons was quartered at Raincy, and from it two privates and a corporal were given me for escort. In the company of these men I started back by the longer road in the rear of our lines. And it was a quarter to ten when I started. For I noticed the time of a clock in the commandant's quarters. I should think that it must have taken three-quarters of an hour to reach Montfermeil, for the snow was deep here and the mist very thick. Beyond Montfermeil, however, we came to higher ground; there were fewer drifts of snow, and the night began to clear, so that we made better going. ”

“ In order to play the part of a faithful historian, we ought even to add that, among the curiosities displayed in the square, there was a menagerie, in which frightful clowns, clad in rags and coming no one knew whence, exhibited to the peasants of Montfermeil in 1823 one of those horrible Brazilian vultures, such as our Royal Museum did not possess until 1845, and which have a tricolored cockade for an eye. ”

“ She sent the forty francs to Montfermeil.
After all it was a ruse of the Thenardiers to obtain money. Cosette was not ill.
Fantine threw her mirror out of the window. She had long since quitted her cell on the second floor for an attic with only a latch to fasten it, next the roof; one of those attics whose extremity forms an angle with the floor, and knocks you on the head every instant. The poor occupant can reach the end of his chamber as he can the end of his destiny, only by bending over more and more. ”

“ The public writer, a good old man who could not fill his stomach with red wine without emptying his pocket of secrets, was made to talk in the wine-shop. In short, it was discovered that Fantine had a child. "She must be a pretty sort of a woman." An old gossip was found, who made the trip to Montfermeil, talked to the Thenardiers, and said on her return: "For my five and thirty francs I have freed my mind. ”

“ I was conducted to the quarters of the commandant of artillery and I delivered my message.
"You have come quickly," he said. "What road did you take?"
"That of Chesnay and Gagny."
The commandant looked queerly at me.
"Did you?" said he. "You are lucky. You will return by Montfermeil and Chelles, Lieutenant von Altrock, and I will send an escort with you. Apparently we are better informed at Raincy than you at Noisy-le-Grand." ”

“ That end of the village which was on the Gagny side obtained its water from the splendid ponds in the forest there; but the other end, which surrounds the church and is on the Chelles side, could only obtain drinking-water from a little spring about a quarter of an hour's walk from Montfermeil, near the road to Chelles; laying in water was therefore a hard task for every family. The large houses and the aristocracy, among which Thénardier's pot-house may be reckoned, paid a liard a bucket to a man whose trade it was, and who earned by it about eight sous a day. ”

“ This was the terror of little Cosette.
Cosette was a little girl who had been left by her mother several years before in the care of an innkeeper and his wife named Thénardier. She had proved very useful to these people in two ways. They were regularly paid by the mother for her care, and they used her as a servant. Thus it was that it was Cosette’s task to fetch water when needed. As she was terribly afraid of going at night to the spring, she took good care to have plenty of water in the house at all times.{172}
Christmas of the year 1823 had been particularly fine at Montfermeil. ”

“ When the top of the Ferry Hills was reached we saw the town, all as dead as if the holy Sabbath lay upon it, without one evidence of life. How beautiful is Dunfermline seen from the Ferry Hills, its grand old abbey towering over all, seeming to hallow the city and to lend a charm and dignity to the lowliest tenement. Nor is there in all broad Scotland, nor in many places elsewhere, that I know of, a more varied and delightful view than that obtained from the park upon a fine day. What Benares is to the Hindoo, Mecca to the Mohammedan, Jerusalem to the Christian, all that Dunfermline is to me. ”

“ Montferrand has several interesting houses of the 15th and 16th centuries, and a church of the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries.
Clermont-Ferrand is the seat of a bishopric and a prefecture and headquarters of the XIII. army corps; it has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce, an exchange and a branch of the Bank of France. The town is the centre of an educational division (académie) , and has faculties of science and of literature. ”

“ JOURNAL CONTINUED. Montreuil, May, 1816.—The appearance of France is exactly what it was when I first travelled, but the inhabitants wear a different aspect. The women are not much altered; if anything, rather graver; the men more stern and sententious than before the Revolution. The people we met looked pale and wretched, and, except the postilions, we saw scarcely a single young man. The woman of the inn at Montreuil seemed a good Royalist, and talked with much feeling of the bon Roi, who had kissed her child when she saw him at Calais. ”

“ The next morning, in some danger of parties [Spanish] surprising us, we came to Montreuil, built on the summit of a most conspicuous hill, environed with fair and ample meadows; but all the suburbs had been from time to time ruined, and were now lately burnt by the Spanish inroads. This town is fortified with two very deep dry ditches; the walls about the bastions and citadel are a noble piece of masonry. The church is more glorious without than within; the market place large; but the inhabitants are miserably poor. ”

“ After the capture of the town of Montereau, the king of England and the duke of Burgundy decamped with the army, and, crossing the Seine by a newly-erected bridge, encamped between the two rivers Seine and Yonne, and more effectually surrounded the castle with their warlike engines to batter it down. The king of England sent all the prisoners from the town under a good escort, to hold a parley with those in the castle, from the ditches, to prevail on the governor to surrender the place. ”

“ Montreuil between the Counts of Ponthieu and Flanders and the Duke of Normandy were settled by the King of France, Hugo Capet, who made the town part of the Royal Domain of France and built a great fortified château by the side of the old citadel. ”

“ Louis was married, and looked at the beautiful thirteenth-century glass in the windows, and the strange frescoes; we rushed in and out of Notre Dame du Port, stopping on the way in the Place where the first Crusade was proclaimed, and to gaze at the house and statue of Pascal. Jack would squander some of his extremely hard earned money on a box of the burnt almonds for which Clermont-Ferrand is celebrated; and when we had seen everything I dared stop to see, he ran the car to Montferrand, to show me some ancient and wonderful houses, famous all over France. ”

“ At the foot of the edifice the forest stretches away, and behind the screen of trees lies a limitless country, in which cultivated fields extend to the horizon. Everywhere orchards, hamlets, villages meet the eye. The Seine is not far off, and at no great distance, like a band of silver, the Marne meanders capriciously through an immense plain studded with clumps of trees.
On one side a view is obtained of Montreuil, famed for its peaches ”

“ She lives as servant with an old miserly fellow, rich enough to buy and sell half Paris,—a notary, named M. Jacques Ferrand."
"M. Jacques Ferrand!" exclaimed Rodolph, surprised at the fresh coincidence which brought under his notice the very individual from whom, or from whose confidential housekeeper, he expected to glean so many particulars relative to La Goualeuse. "M. Jacques Ferrand, who lives in the Rue du Sentier, do you mean?" inquired he. ”

“ There followed a pause, during which could be heard the murmur of the waiting throng and the autumnal rustle of the trees without the gallery. At last:
"Yours was ever an eloquent tongue, Sir Mortimer Ferne," said the Queen, slowly. "Hadst thou known when to hold it, much might have been different.... Thy father served us well, and once we slept at his ancient house of Ferne, rich only in the valor and loyal deeds of its masters, from old times until our own.... What is lost is lost, and other and greater matters clamor for our attention. ”

“ In villages, deaths are looked on as nothing more than a letter by the post, whilst in Paris they are a little more curious in such matters. But when do you send your young lady from the provinces to the isle of Asnières, for I must give the Martials notice of the part they have to play?' 'She will arrive here to-morrow, and next day I shall send her to them,' replied M. Ferrand; 'and I shall tell her that Doctor Vincent will pay her a visit at my request.' 'Ah, Vincent will do as well as any other name,' said the voice. ”

“ But to tell the truth, his captivity seems to captivate the whole court, for there is none now who receives any notice but Hugh de Monthermer."
"The court must be getting wise in its old age," rejoined the friar. "Methinks I shall follow it, too, as merit meets advancement. But, I beseech you, fair sir, tell me where the young lord makes abode; for though I find the doors of this castle as strait for, my fat sides as those of heaven, they are as many as those of the other place." ”

“ On the morrow, a grand council was held in the hall of the court of exchequer, at which were present all the aldermen and the deputies of the sixteen wards, together with a number of counsellors from the court of parliament and other officers. The chancellor, Morvilliers, then explained to them, in the king's name, what great offers he had made to the princes before Paris, in answer to their demands respecting the appanage of his brother, the duke of Berry, for whom they required the duchies of Guienne, Poitou, and Saintonge, or the duchy of Normandy. ”

“ I walked out one morning to Ferney in order to visit the chateau of Voltaire and to do hommage to the memory of that great man, the benefactor of the human race. It was he who gave the mortal blow to superstition and to the power of the clergy. It is the fashion for priests, Ultras and Tories to rail against him, but I judge him by his works and the effect of his works. His memory is held in reverence by the inhabitants of Ferney as their father and benefactor. He spent his whole fortune in acts of the most disinterested charity ”

“ In the Seine valley, beginning with La Roche-Guyon, on the borders of the ancient royal domain, down to the mouth of the mighty river at Havre, is one continuous panorama of delightful large and small towns, not nearly so well known as one might suppose. Vernon with its tree-bordered quays; Giverny, and its artists colony; Les Andelys with their “saucy castle” built by Richard Cœur de Lion; Pont de l’Arche with the florid Gothic church dedicated to Our Lady of the Arts; the riverside resorts above Rouen; Elbeuf with its busy factories, but picturesque and historic withal ”

“ Just above Havre on the Seine is the florid spire of the noble church of Harfleur,—not to be confounded with the now dormant port of Honfleur on the opposite bank,—one of the most imposingly placed spires in Normandy, if not in France. ”

“ Geddes to make, by the application of modern skill, science and art, the ancient city of Dunfermline a centre of sweetness and light, stimulating us all to higher and yet higher efforts to secure civic, national and imperial well-being. ”

“ The village of Ferney was by far the prettiest we had seen since we left our own country; the houses all had an air of neatness and comfort dear to an English eye, and nothing could be more gay and cheerful than their little gardens and orchards; in the former, flowers and vegetables flourished promiscuously, and in great luxuriance, and the latter were glowing with a profusion of rosy apples. We observed a species of this fruit among them, which we did not remember ever to have seen in any other country ”