Page 299 - les-miserables

CHAPTER VI

FATHER FAUCHELEVENT

One morning M. Madeleine was passing through an un-
paved alley of M. sur M.; he heard a noise, and saw a group
some distance away. He approached. An old man named Fa-
ther Fauchelevent had just fallen beneath his cart, his horse
having tumbled down.
This Fauchelevent was one of the few enemies whom M.
Madeleine had at that time. When Madeleine arrived in the
neighborhood, Fauchelevent, an ex-notary and a peasant
who was almost educated, had a business which was begin-
ning to be in a bad way. Fauchelevent had seen this simple
workman grow rich, while he, a lawyer, was being ruined.
This had filled him with jealousy, and he had done all he
could, on every occasion, to injure Madeleine. Then bank-
ruptcy had come; and as the old man had nothing left but
a cart and a horse, and neither family nor children, he had
turned carter.
The horse had two broken legs and could not rise. The old
man was caught in the wheels. The fall had been so unlucky
that the whole weight of the vehicle rested on his breast. The
cart was quite heavily laden. Father Fauchelevent was rat-

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