Evening star., 1919-09-28
REEVES INTEREST
IN JEAN VADEAN
American Y. M. C. A. Secre-
tary Makes Les MiserabIes'
Best Seller in Paris.
HIS TRIP WITH D0UGHB0Ys

The man who lately made Les
Miserables" a best seller in Paris
returned to the United States a few
days ago on converted cattle ship.
he Is Frank D. Lewis, an attorney
or Everett, Wash, and probably the
best press agent that Victor Hugo
ever had.
His enthusiasm over the famous
novel led some 1000 doughboys- on
pleasure bent to make one afternoon
OF their three-day leave in Paris a
literary pilgrimage to the places
mentioned in Jean Valjeans adven-
lures, and 1000 doughboys besieged
the Partisan booksellers and libraries
for copies of Les Miserables" to re-
read.
The result was inevitable. The
supply of English copies of the work
soon was exhausted. The American
Library Association sent out S. o. S.
calls to London for Les Miserables. /"
London did it's best, but it was not
enough. Finally New York had to
ordinarily be like carrying Goals to
Newcastle, America supplied France
with the needed copies of the most
popular novel of her greatest nov
elist.
Grasps the Opportunity.
Mr.. Lewis. before taking up law,
was teacher for twenty years, pre-
slolng over every sort of pedaeogic
institution from a one-room district
Scnooi 5. to city school system. so
IL II was only natural, when he found
nlmSeit IN Paris as Y. M. C.. A.
worker Immediately after the sign
ing of the armistice, that the educa-
t1onal opportunity Paris offered to
the thousands of American boys
should appeal to him,
he. organized the first Y. NJ c. A.
sightseeing trips to places of his
toric interest, trips that became so
popular that transportation facilities
were taxed to the utmost. steam
boats were chartered, special trains
operated and Army trucks pressed
into service when the crowds be-
came so great that the ''rubber-neck"
wagons of the French capital could
no longer accommodate them.
1t, was while visiting the tomb of
Lafayette that Mr. Lewis felt he was
treading well known ground. The
convent in which he stood was
strangely familiar: He has never been
ehOi ueAoEC anu dt uISG COulQ not aC-
count for the feeling. Suddenly he
remembered that the building fitted
the description of the convent in the
Rue Petit Picpus where Little Cosette
had been. He verified the location
by reference to the story.
Keeps Up the Search.
From that time on I found more
and more places that Hugo had men
toned" said Mr.. Lewis, "and I per-
suaded the Y. M. c. A. to let me have
a bus for trial trip to about twenty
five of these points. The nine men
enthusiastic that the "Y" made the
tour a regular feature of it's sight
seeing program. 1t proved SO popular
that instead of making the trip twice
a week we had to make it daily and
to requisition additional busses for
it,"
For the boy who had read the won
derful story, 1t was rare treat to
be guided by such an enthusiast as
Mr.. Lewis through the very places
that the master novelist had de-
scribed SO vfvidly; to stop on the
quail which looks across the Cours
la Refine to the Port du Gros Call
lou and the Seine just as it did on the
June evening in 1882 when Jean
valjean emerged at the mouth of
the sewer only to find his passage
barred by the heavy iron grating of
the gate; and to visit the house in the
Rue Plumet where Jean Vatican took
Cosette after she left the convent
in the Little Picpus.
Gladiator Still Stands in Garden.
Near the church is the Palace of
the Luxembourg, in whose gardens
Jean Vatican and Cosette were ac-
customed to- walk during the long
summer evenings The statue of the
Gladiator. under which Marius and
Cosette used to meet, still stands in
the garden, but the bench at its base
has been moved away. The gardens
even now afford happy rendezvous
for lovers, however, and the imag-
NATIVE soldier had little difficulty
in finding the needed characters to
rebuild the scenes of the story among
the many couples who wandered
Not far from the gardens runs the
Roman road. known as St Jacques.
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