The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-03-10


 from the lad and drove him away with curses.
 Tn the gathering evening he sat down and thought of what he had done and of the words of the good bishop Then he wrestled with his past and of old wrestled with the angel and would not let it go until 1t blessed him.
 Shortly after this there appeared in the town of M sur M. stranger who gave the name of M. Madeleine. As he happened to rescue some people from a fire upon the occasion of his first entrance into the place, he was taken for granted and his passport was not asked for. The chief industry of M sur M. was the manufacture of imi- tation English jet and German black beads. The stranger invented a process by which the cost of production of these articles was greatly reduced, with the result that wages increased and the business was greatly extend ed. He himself became the principal manufactures, and retaining his simple habits as he grew wealthy and being unwearying in helpfulness and chari- ty. the name of Father Madeleine. as the people called him, came to be spoken in M. sur M with the same reverence as the name of the good bishop was spoken in D..
 After q while he became Mayor; and Monsieur le Marie was loved and trust- cd by all the people as Father Made leine had been. Only there was one ex- ception, Javert. Inspector of Police, neither loved nor trusted M. le Marie
 'TWhere have I seen that man be-
 2" he said te himself. Years be-
 avert had been for a short time
 ue the keepers in the bagne Of
 o4 sn. He was a man possessed of a
 silinear conscience.
 The world. for him. was divided in to two classes--those who represented the law and those who broke the law. Once having broken the law man be- longed, irretrievably, to the latter class and should always be treated as a criminal.
 Such was the condition of affairs in M. sur M. when Fantfne came creep ing home to take up the tangled thread of her life in her native town. Paris had. taken her, an honest work ing girl. and turned her out--what she was.
 On her way home she had left her child, girl three years old. whom shc called Cosette, with the family of an innkeeper at the little village of Mont fermei1 near Paris, paying money in advance for it's board and promising to send more when she reached M. sur M. and got work.
 This innkeeper with whom little Cosette had been left was named Thenardier. "The Sergeant of Water loo" he called himself. and so named his inn, having a signboard on which was a picture of 6 sergeant of the ImperialGuard rescuring an officer upon the striker field That was his story that he Tad rescued an officer at Wa terloo and performed prodigies of valor in the doing of it.
 His true story was this. At night fall on the 18th of June, 1915, Bernard and Bertrand seized by the skirts of his coat in field near Genappes haggard, thoughtful, gloomy man who, carried so far by the current of the rout. had just dismounted, passed the bride over his arm and was now, with wandering eye, returning alone to Wa terloo. It was Napoleon, the immense somnambulist of the shattered dream, still striving to advance. Further away, upon the field which had been the scene of the titanic struggle of that eventfuI day, the camp-followers-- ghouls-were plundering the slain. One of these providers pulled the body of an officer from under heap of slain and rifled 1t. The. officer was not dead; the fresh air and the rought treat ment revived him and, seeing this. the ghoul pretended that he had come to rescue him.
 ''You have saved my life," said the officer. What Is your name2"
 "Thenardier," replied the man after little hesitation, and then, hearing the sound Of an approacnlns patroi' he made off. The officer was Colonel, the Baron Pontmercy, and when he died, years after, he left to his son, Marius. as his only legacy, his name and injunction to befriend Thenardier should he ever have the opportunity. It was with money taken on the field at Waterloo that Thenardier started his ale house, but 1t is not enough to be wicked in order to be prosperous. | and Thenardier was not prosperous. In short he was a thorough-paced rascal and an unsuccessful one, and his wife was a she-dragon, and had beard.
 As Cosette grew the demands of the Thenardiers upon Fantine Tor money increased and she. poor girl. working now in the factory of Father Made leine, almost starved herself--and was glad to do it-in order to send money for the support of her child. This hard earned money was applied by the Thenardiers to their own wants and to supply finery for their own child ren. while little Cosette, clothed In rags, became the household drudge and ate from a wooden platter with the dog and the cat, under the table
 Fantine could not write and so. in sending her remittances to the Then- ardiers, had to employ the public scrivener of M. sur M. This excited gossip among the women and one busybody, learning where the letters went, made a journey to Montfermetl and, came back with the news that Fantine was supporting an illegiti- mate child there.
 The forewoman of the room in which Fantine worked, a strict person filled full of that charity that consists in giving, but not possessing that charity which comprehends and pardons, dis charged the girl at once. and after many fruitless struggles Fantine, sick in body and mind, took to the streets.
 Inspector Javert arrested her one night and took her to the police ofice. Monsieur le Marie came ins and the girl, in her hysteria thinking that he had ordered her discharge from the factory, spat in his face. Learning her story, Father Madeleine ordered Fan tine discharged and taken to the hos pltai. Javert was mortified at this substitution of mercy for justice, and that night wrote a long letter to the Prefecture of Police at Paris. few