It is recognized as elegant.
The Vaugirard cemetery was a venerable enclosure, planted like an old-fashioned French garden.
Straight alleys, box, thuya-trees, holly, ancient tombs beneath aged cypress-trees, and very tall grass. In the evening it was tragic there.
There were very lugubrious lines about it.
The sun had not yet set when the hearse with the white pall and the black cross entered the avenue of the Vaugirard cemetery. The lame man who followed it was no other than Fauchelevent.
The interment of Mother Crucifixion in the vault under the altar, the exit of Cosette, the introduction of Jean Valjean to the dead-room,-- all had been executed without difficulty, and there had been no hitch.
Let us remark in passing, that the burial of Mother Crucifixion under the altar of the convent is a perfectly venial offence in our sight.
It is one of the faults which resemble a duty. The nuns had committed it, not only without difficulty, but even with the applause of their own consciences.
In the cloister, what is called the "government" is only an intermeddling with authority, an interference which is always questionable.
In the first place, the rule; as for the code, we shall see.
Make as many laws as you please, men; but keep them for yourselves.
The tribute to Caesar is never anything but the remnants of the tribute to God. A prince is nothing in the presence of a principle.
Fauchelevent limped along behind the hearse in a very contented frame of mind.
His twin plots, the one with the nuns, the one for the convent, the other against it, the other with M. Madeleine, had succeeded, to all appearance.
Jean Valjean's composure was one of those powerful tranquillities which are contagious. Fauchelevent no longer felt doubtful as to his success.
What remained to be done was a mere nothing.
Within the last two years, he had made good Father Mestienne, a chubby-cheeked person, drunk at least ten times.
He played with Father Mestienne.
He did what he liked with him.
He made him dance according to his whim. Mestienne's head adjusted itself to the cap of Fauchelevent's will. Fauchelevent's confidence was perfect.