Page 472 - les-miserables

his home.’
M. Madeleine did not allow the district-attorney to
finish; he interrupted him in accents full of suavity and au-
thority. These are the words which he uttered; here they are
literally, as they were written down, immediately after the
trial by one of the witnesses to this scene, and as they now
ring in the ears of those who heard them nearly forty years
ago:—
‘I thank you, Mr. District-Attorney, but I am not mad;
you shall see; you were on the point of committing a great
error; release this man! I am fulfilling a duty; I am that mis-
erable criminal. I am the only one here who sees the matter
clearly, and I am telling you the truth. God, who is on high,
looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that
suffices. You can take me, for here I am: but I have done
my best; I concealed myself under another name; I have be-
come rich; I have become a mayor; I have tried to re-enter
the ranks of the honest. It seems that that is not to be done.
In short, there are many things which I cannot tell. I will
not narrate the story of my life to you; you will hear it one
of these days. I robbed Monseigneur the Bishop, it is true; it
is true that I robbed Little Gervais; they were right in tell-
ing you that Jean Valjean was a very vicious wretch. Perhaps
it was not altogether his fault. Listen, honorable judges! a
man who has been so greatly humbled as I have has neither
any remonstrances to make to Providence, nor any advice
to give to society; but, you see, the infamy from which I have
tried to escape is an injurious thing; the galleys make the
convict what he is; reflect upon that, if you please. Before

472 Les Miserables